05 William Tell Told Again Read online

  “What I sez,” said Friesshardt, “is, wot’s the use of us wasting our time here?” (Friesshardt was not a very well-educated man, and he did not speak good grammar.) “None of these here people ain’t a-going to bow down to that there hat. Of course they ain’t. Why, I can remember the time when this meadow was like a fair—everybody a-shoving and a-jostling one another for elbow-room; and look at it now! It’s a desert. That’s what it is, a desert. What’s the good of us wasting of our time here, I sez. That’s what I sez.

  “And they’re artful, too, mind yer,” he continued. “Why, only this morning, I sez to myself, ‘Friesshardt,’ I sez, ‘you just wait till twelve o’clock,’ I sez, ”cos that’s when they leave the council-house, and then they’ll have to cross the meadow. And then we’ll see what we shall see,’ I sez. Like that, I sez. Bitter-like, yer know. ‘We’ll see,’ I sez, ‘what we shall see.’ So I waited, and at twelve o’clock out they came, dozens of them, and began to cross the meadow. ‘And now,’ sez I to myself, ‘look out for larks.’ But what happened? Why, when they came to the pole, the priest stood in front of it, and the sacristan rang the bell, and they all fell down on their knees. But they were saying their prayers, not doing obeisance to the hat. That’s what they were doing. Artful—that’s what they are!”

  And Friesshardt kicked the foot of the pole viciously with his iron boot.

  “It’s my belief,” said Leuthold (Leuthold is the thin soldier you see in the picture)—”it’s my firm belief that they are laughing at us. There! Listen to that!”

  A voice made itself heard from behind a rock not far off.

  “Where did you get that hat?” said the voice.

  “There!” grumbled Leuthold; “they’re always at it. Last time it was, ‘Who’s your hatter?’ Why, we’re the laughing-stock of the place. We’re like two rogues in a pillory. ‘Tis rank disgrace for one who wears a sword to stand as sentry o’er an empty hat. To make obeisance to a hat! I’ faith, such a command is downright foolery!”

  “Well,” said Friesshardt, “and why not bow before an empty hat? Thou hast oft bow’d before an empty skull. Ha, ha! I was always one for a joke, yer know.”

  “Here come some people,” said Leuthold. “At last! And they’re only the rabble, after all. You don’t catch any of the better sort of people coming here.”

  A crowd was beginning to collect on the edge of the meadow. Its numbers swelled every minute, until quite a hundred of the commoner sort must have been gathered together. They stood pointing at the pole and talking among themselves, but nobody made any movement to cross the meadow.

  At last somebody shouted “Yah!”

  The soldiers took no notice.

  Somebody else cried “Booh!”’

  “Pass along there, pass along!” said the soldiers.

  Cries of “Where did you get that hat?” began to come from the body of the crowd. When the Swiss invented a catch-phrase they did not drop it in a hurry.

  “Where—did—you—get—that—HAT?” they shouted.

  Friesshardt and Leuthold stood like two statues in armour, paying no attention to the remarks of the rabble. This annoyed the rabble. They began to be more personal.

  “You in the second-hand lobster-tin,” shouted one—he meant Friesshardt, whose suit of armour, though no longer new, hardly deserved this description—”who’s your hatter?”

  “Can’t yer see,” shouted a friend, when Friesshardt made no reply, “the pore thing ain’t alive? ‘E’s stuffed!”

  Roars of laughter greeted this sally. Friesshardt, in spite of the fact that he enjoyed a joke, turned pink.

  “‘E’s blushing!” shrieked a voice.

  Friesshardt turned purple.

  Then things got still more exciting.

  “‘Ere,” said a rough voice in the crowd impatiently, “wot’s the good of torkin’ to ‘em? Gimme that ‘ere egg, missus!”

  And in another instant an egg flew across the meadow, and burst over Leuthold’s shoulder. The crowd howled with delight. This was something like fun, thought they, and the next moment eggs, cabbages, cats, and missiles of every sort darkened the air. The two soldiers raved and shouted, but did not dare to leave their post. At last, just as the storm was at its height, it ceased, as if by magic. Everyone in the crowd turned round, and, as he turned, jumped into the air and waved his hat.

  [Illustration: PLATE III]

  A deafening cheer went up.

  “Hurrah!” cried the mob; “here comes good old Tell! Now there’s going to be a jolly row!”

  CHAPTER VIII

  Tell came striding along, Walter by his side, and his crossbow over his shoulder. He knew nothing about the hat having been placed on the pole, and he was surprised to see such a large crowd gathered in the meadow. He bowed to the crowd in his polite way, and the crowd gave three cheers and one more, and he bowed again.

  “Hullo!” said Walter suddenly; “look at that hat up there, father. On the pole.”

  “What is the hat to us?” said Tell; and he began to walk across the meadow with an air of great dignity, and Walter walked by his side, trying to look just like him.

  “Here! hi!” shouted the soldiers. “Stop! You haven’t bowed down to the cap.”

  [Illustration: PLATE IV]

  Tell looked scornful, but said nothing. Walter looked still more scornful.

  “Ho, there!” shouted Friesshardt, standing in front of him. “I bid you stand in the Emperor’s name.”

  “My good fellow,” said Tell, “please do not bother me. I am in a hurry. I really have nothing for you.”

  “My orders is,” said Friesshardt, “to stand in this ‘ere meadow and to see as how all them what passes through it does obeisance to that there hat. Them’s Governor’s orders, them is. So now.”

  “My good fellow,” said Tell, “let me pass. I shall get cross, I know I shall.”

  Shouts of encouragement from the crowd, who were waiting patiently for the trouble to begin.

  “Go it, Tell!” they cried. “Don’t stand talking to him. Hit him a kick!”

  Friesshardt became angrier every minute.

  “My orders is,” he said again, “to arrest them as don’t bow down to the hat, and for two pins, young feller, I’ll arrest you. So which is it to be? Either you bow down to that there hat or you come along of me.”

  Tell pushed him aside, and walked on with his chin in the air. Walter went with him, with his chin in the air.

  WHACK!

  A howl of dismay went up from the crowd as they saw Friesshardt raise his pike and bring it down with all his force on Tell’s head. The sound of the blow went echoing through the meadow and up the hills and down the valleys.

  [Illustration: PLATE V]

  “Ow!” cried Tell.

  “Now,” thought the crowd, “things must begin to get exciting.”

  Tell’s first idea was that one of the larger mountains in the neighbourhood had fallen on top of him. Then he thought that there must have been an earthquake. Then it gradually dawned upon him that he had been hit by a mere common soldier with a pike. Then he was angry.

  “Look here!” he began.

  “Look there!” said Friesshardt, pointing to the cap.

  [Illustration: PLATE VI]

  “You’ve hurt my head very much,” said Tell. “Feel the bump. If I hadn’t happened to have a particularly hard head I don’t know what might not have happened;” and he raised his fist and hit Friesshardt; but as Friesshardt was wearing a thick iron helmet the blow did not hurt him very much.

  But it had the effect of bringing the crowd to Tell’s assistance. They had been waiting all this time for him to begin the fighting, for though they were very anxious to attack the soldiers, they did not like to do so by themselves. They wanted a leader.

  So when they saw Tell hit Friesshardt, they tucked up their sleeves, grasped their sticks and cudgels more tightly, and began to run across the meadow towards him.

  Neither of the soldiers not
iced this. Friesshardt was busy arguing with Tell, and Leuthold was laughing at Friesshardt. So when the people came swarming up with their sticks and cudgels they were taken by surprise. But every soldier in the service of Gessler was as brave as a lion, and Friesshardt and Leuthold were soon hitting back merrily, and making a good many of the crowd wish that they had stayed at home. The two soldiers were wearing armour, of course, so that it was difficult to hurt them; but the crowd, who wore no armour, found that they could get hurt very easily. Conrad Hunn, for instance, was attacking Friesshardt, when the soldier happened to drop his pike. It fell on Conrad’s toe, and Conrad limped away, feeling that fighting was no fun unless you had thick boots on.

  And so for a time the soldiers had the best of the fight.

  CHAPTER IX

  For many minutes the fight raged furiously round the pole, and the earth shook beneath the iron boots of Friesshardt and Leuthold as they rushed about, striking out right and left with their fists and the flats of their pikes. Seppi the cowboy (an ancestor, by the way, of Buffalo Bill) went down before a tremendous blow by Friesshardt, and Leuthold knocked Klaus von der Flue head over heels.

  “What you want” said Arnold of Sewa, who had seen the beginning of the fight from the window of his cottage and had hurried to join it, and, as usual, to give advice to everybody—”what you want here is guile. That’s what you want—guile, cunning. Not brute force, mind you. It’s no good rushing at a man in armour and hitting him. He only hits you back. You should employ guile. Thus. Observe.”

  He had said these words standing on the outskirts of the crowd. He now grasped his cudgel and began to steal slowly towards Friesshardt, who had just given Werni the huntsman such a hit with his pike that the sound of it was still echoing in the mountains, and was now busily engaged in disposing of Jost Weiler. Arnold of Sewa crept stealthily behind him, and was just about to bring his cudgel down on his head, when Leuthold, catching sight of him, saved his comrade by driving his pike with all his force into Arnold’s side. Arnold said afterwards that it completely took his breath away. He rolled over, and after being trodden on by everybody for some minutes, got up and limped back to his cottage, where he went straight to bed, and did not get up for two days.

  All this time Tell had been standing a little way off with his arms folded, looking on. While it was a quarrel simply between himself and Friesshardt he did not mind fighting. But when the crowd joined in he felt that it was not fair to help so many men attack one, however badly that one might have behaved.

  He now saw that the time had come to put an end to the disturbance. He drew an arrow from his quiver, placed it in his crossbow, and pointed it at the hat. Friesshardt, seeing what he intended to do, uttered a shout of horror and rushed to stop him. But at that moment somebody in the crowd hit him so hard with a spade that his helmet was knocked over his eyes, and before he could raise it again the deed was done. Through the cap and through the pole and out at the other side sped the arrow. And the first thing he saw when he opened his eyes was Tell standing beside him twirling his moustache, while all around the crowd danced and shouted and threw their caps into the air with joy.

  [Illustration: PLATE VII]

  [Illustration: PLATE VIII]

  “A mere trifle,” said Tell modestly.

  The crowd cheered again and again.

  Friesshardt and Leuthold lay on the ground beside the pole, feeling very sore and bruised, and thought that perhaps, on the whole, they had better stay there. There was no knowing what the crowd might do after this, if they began to fight again. So they lay on the ground and made no attempt to interfere with the popular rejoicings. What they wanted, as Arnold of Sewa might have said if he had been there, was a few moments’ complete rest. Leuthold’s helmet had been hammered with sticks until it was over his eyes and all out of shape, and Friesshardt’s was very little better. And they both felt just as if they had been run over in the street by a horse and cart.

  “Tell!” shouted the crowd. “Hurrah for Tell! Good old Tell!”

  “Tell’s the boy!” roared Ulric the smith. “Not another man in Switzerland could have made that shot.”

  “No,” shrieked everybody, “not another!”

  “Speech!” cried someone from the edge of the crowd.

  “Speech! Speech! Tell, speech!” Everybody took up the cry.

  “No, no,” said Tell, blushing.

  “Go on, go on!” shouted the crowd.

  “Oh, I couldn’t,” said Tell; “I don’t know what to say.”

  “Anything will do. Speech! Speech!”

  Ulric the smith and Ruodi the fisherman hoisted Tell on to their shoulders, and, having coughed once or twice, he said:

  “Gentlemen—”

  Cheers from the crowd.

  “Gentlemen,” said Tell again, “this is the proudest moment of my life.”

  More cheers.

  “I don’t know what you want me to talk about. I have never made a speech before. Excuse my emotion. This is the proudest moment of my life. To-day is a great day for Switzerland. We have struck the first blow of the revolution. Let us strike some more.”

  Shouts of “Hear, hear!” from the crowd, many of whom, misunderstanding Tell’s last remark, proceeded to hit Leuthold and Friesshardt, until stopped by cries of “Order!” from Ulric the smith.

  “Gentlemen,” continued Tell, “the floodgates of revolution have been opened. From this day they will stalk through the land burning to ashes the slough of oppression which our tyrant Governor has erected in our midst. I have only to add that this is the proudest moment of my life, and–-“

  He was interrupted by a frightened voice.

  “Look out, you chaps,” said the voice; “here comes the Governor!”

  Gessler, with a bodyguard of armed men, had entered the meadow, and was galloping towards them.

  CHAPTER X

  Gessler came riding up on his brown horse, and the crowd melted away in all directions, for there was no knowing what the Governor might not do if he found them plotting. They were determined to rebel and to throw off his tyrannous yoke, but they preferred to do it quietly and comfortably, when he was nowhere near.

  So they ran away to the edge of the meadow, and stood there in groups, waiting to see what was going to happen. Not even Ulric the smith and Ruodi the fisherman waited, though they knew quite well that Tell had not nearly finished his speech. They set the orator down, and began to walk away, trying to look as if they had been doing nothing in particular, and were going to go on doing it—only somewhere else.

  Tell was left standing alone in the middle of the meadow by the pole. He scorned to run away like the others, but he did not at all like the look of things. Gessler was a stern man, quick to punish any insult, and there were two of his soldiers lying on the ground with their nice armour all spoiled and dented, and his own cap on top of the pole had an arrow right through the middle of it, and would never look the same again, however much it might be patched. It seemed to Tell that there was a bad time coming.

  Gessler rode up, and reined in his horse.

  “Now then, now then, now then!” he said, in his quick, abrupt way. “What’s this? what’s this? what’s this?”

  (When a man repeats what he says three times, you can see that he is not in a good temper.)

  Friesshardt and Leuthold got up, saluted, and limped slowly towards him. They halted beside his horse, and stood to attention. The tears trickled down their cheeks.

  “Come, come, come!” said Gessler; “tell me all about it.”

  [Illustration: PLATE IX]

  And he patted Friesshardt on the head. Friesshardt bellowed.

  Gessler beckoned to one of his courtiers.

  “Have you a handkerchief?” he said.

  “I have a handkerchief, your Excellency.”

  “Then dry this man’s eyes.”

  The courtier did as he was bidden.

  “Now,” said Gessler, when the drying was done, and Friesshardt�
�s tears had ceased, “what has been happening here? I heard a cry of ‘Help!’ as I came up. Who cried ‘Help!’?”

  “Please, your lordship’s noble Excellencyship,” said Friesshardt, “it was me, Friesshardt.”

  “You should say, ‘It was I,’” said Gessler. “Proceed.”

  “Which I am a loyal servant of your Excellency’s, and in your Excellency’s army, and seeing as how I was told to stand by this ‘ere pole and guard that there hat, I stood by this ‘ere pole, and guarded that there hat—all day, I did, your Excellency. And then up comes this man here, and I says to him—’Bow down to the hat,’ I says. ‘Ho!’ he says to me—’ho, indeed!’ and he passed on without so much as nodding. So I takes my pike, and I taps him on the head to remind him, as you may say, that there was something he was forgetting, and he ups and hits me, he does. And then the crowd runs up with their sticks and hits me and Leuthold cruel, your Excellency. And while we was a-fighting with them, this here man I’m a-telling you about, your Excellency, he outs with an arrow, puts it into his bow, and sends it through the hat, and I don’t see how you’ll ever be able to wear it again. It’s a waste of a good hat, your Excellency—that’s what it is. And then the people, they puts me and Leuthold on the ground, and hoists this here man—Tell, they call him—up on their shoulders, and he starts making a speech, when up you comes, your Excellency. That’s how it all was.”

  Gessler turned pale with rage, and glared fiercely at Tell, who stood before him in the grasp of two of the bodyguard.

  “Ah,” he said, “Tell, is it? Good-day to you, Tell. I think we’ve met before, Tell? Eh, Tell?”

  “We have, your Excellency. It was in the ravine of Schächenthal,” said Tell firmly.

  “Your memory is good, Tell. So is mine. I think you made a few remarks to me on that occasion, Tell—a few chatty remarks? Eh, Tell?”

  “Very possibly, your Excellency.”

  “You were hardly polite, Tell.”

  “If I offended you I am sorry.”

  “I am glad to hear it, Tell. I think you will be even sorrier before long. So you’ve been ill-treating my soldiers, eh?”